


The Experiment

by Suzie_Shooter



Category: The Alienist (TV), The Alienist - Caleb Carr
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, For Science!, M/M, Repressed Emotions, angsty sex, bottom!Laszlo, tenuous reasons for sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 07:56:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15310953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzie_Shooter/pseuds/Suzie_Shooter
Summary: To understand the homosexual, one must become the homosexual.Or, Laszlo and John bang: for Science.





	The Experiment

Arriving at 283 East Seventeenth Street on a cold spring afternoon, John Schuyler Moore was surprised to find his friend answering his own front door bell. 

This was nothing, however, to the perplexity he experienced shortly afterwards as Kreizler outlined his plans for that evening, to-wit: visiting the Paresis Hall in the capacity of a paying customer.

John stared at him, temporarily dumbfounded. There was nothing in his long acquaintance with the man that had ever suggested an interest in members of his own sex, regardless of their manner of dress (not, he had to concede, that Laszlo had shown much interest in the opposite sex either, but that didn’t occur to him until much later).

“We need to know our man, John,” Kreizler explained patiently. “And I am convinced it is a man we seek. A man who frequents these places, he is known to these boys. To identify him I must understand him, and to understand him I need to share his experiences. Now, I can hardly go out and murder somebody - ”

“Oh I am relieved you’ve discounted that option.”

Kreizler ignored the sarcastic interruption and continued in the same maddeningly reasonable tone. “But this is one area where I can at least put myself in his shoes, and I intend to do it.” 

“I cannot believe that you of all people would compel one of those poor boys to - ”

“Obviously I’m not talking about a boy!” This time it was Kreizler who interrupted, outraged and indignant. “I should hope you know me better than that John!”

“I’m starting to think I don’t know you at all,” John muttered, shaking his head. “You intend, then, to put yourself at the mercy of some hardened hustler?” 

“While you paint a rather lurid picture, you are essentially correct, yes.”

"You can't be seriously considering this. I won't let you!"

"In the spirit of enquiry - "

"Do your enquiries relate to being drugged and robbed? Because I can't see how else exposing yourself to that place will end." 

"You were there asking questions," Kreizler reminded him calmly. "I am presenting myself merely as a client. It would be a remarkably bad business model were they to treat all their customers in such a way."

"That kind can smell the money on you."

"That is both medically inaccurate and needlessly derogatory. I see no reason to fear for my safety." 

"Laszlo I won't let you do this! There must be another way."

"Can it be you are volunteering then?" Kreizler asked after a small pause.

"I - what?"

"You are correct, to a point. To experience what I require does not necessitate my going there specifically, I had merely identified it as the simplest way of doing so. But if you are presenting an alternative...?"

John stared at him incredulously. "Are you asking me to fuck you?"

Kreizler hesitated. "Strictly speaking it would be more pertinent if I were to be the one who - "

"Oh _that's_ not going to happen," John cut across him explosively.

"I see. You would prefer the role of the aggressor, so to speak?"

John stared at him, speechless. Deep within him was the knowledge that it was not the fact that his own experiences at Paresis Hall had traumatised him that he kept them so deeply buried and denied, but because they hadn't. And he'd be damned if he'd ever admit it to Kreizler, but in the final analysis he had to admit it to himself: whatever he might claim, it wasn't Sara who haunted his dreams.

"If that’s what it takes," he heard himself say. 

Kreizler merely cocked his head a little. "This course of action is acceptable to you?"

"So I’m clear, it would just be - ?"

"An experiment. Just so." 

"Very well.” John gave an ironic bow. “For science, then."

"Excellent. This way." Kreizler gestured towards the hallway and John gaped at him, taken aback.

"You mean for us to do it now?" 

"The house is currently empty. I assume you would prefer no-one else to know what we are about?"

"Well no, of course not!"

"So I presumed. Shall we?" Without waiting for an answer Kreizler walked unhurriedly out of the room, and John found himself following. 

He was struck by the sudden deep suspicion that this outcome was what Kreizler had intended all along. Recalling how Laszlo had opened the door to him in person, and how that had struck him as odd. It wasn’t that unusual for Cyrus and Stevie to be out of the house on errands, but John couldn’t recall the last time Mary had also been absent. 

Had he just been manipulated into this? The man had probably never had any intention of setting foot in Paresis Hall. The trouble with Kreizler was that while you never knew what the smug bastard was thinking, you could never safely assume the opposite. Sometimes it felt uncomfortably like he could see right into your head.

By now they had reached Kreizler’s bedroom, and John was somehow both relieved and unnerved when he locked the door behind them.

Reaching into his pocket, Kreizler handed him a small jar which John stared at in puzzlement.

“What’s this for?” 

“Lubrication,” said Kreizler, with the impassive demeanour of the medical man. John felt himself blushing, and hated himself for it. Hated Kreizler too in that moment, for being so damned aloof. Part of him wanted to turn and walk out, but this impulse was firmly overruled by the rest of him. 

John vaguely hoped that it was his groin doing the overruling, and not something ridiculous like his heart. Falling in love with Laszlo would not end well.

The fact he was being so matter of fact about it all should have made things easier, but somehow it didn’t. John would have preferred nerves and laughter on both sides, just a little glimpse of humanity, but Laszlo remained silent, starting to strip off his clothes with single-minded purpose.

Watching this despite himself, John was aware of the awkwardness with which he removed his shirt, and had to resist the urge to help. Laszlo surely would not thank him for drawing attention to his difficulty, and presumably was quite used to undressing alone. 

They were engaging in a physical act for the purposes of psychological enquiry, that was all. They were not lovers, in the true sense of the word. John had no claim to intimacy here, either giving or receiving.

However much he might crave it.

Once they were both naked, Laszlo pulled back the covers of the bed and climbed into it, leaving room for John to climb up beside him. He seemed entirely calm and self-possessed, but there was one glaring difference between them that left John both mildly embarrassed and slightly perturbed. Whereas John himself was already hard, the tension working on him as much as the excitement, Laszlo was conspicuously not.

Frowning, John joined him wordlessly on the bed and moved closer. Reaching out, as his fingers brushed Laszlo’s bare arm for the first time, Laszlo gave an involuntary intake of breath. It was enough, somehow, for John to realise that despite his chilly exterior Laszlo was as nervous as he was. 

“Are you sure about this?” John asked. Laszlo looked up at him in slight surprise that softened into what was almost a smile. 

“Yes. If you are?”

John nodded, moving closer. Despite his encouraging words Laszlo’s cock was still flaccid, and John reached around to take him in hand, stroking encouragingly.

Laszlo stiffened in entirely the wrong sense. “I hardly think that will be necessary,” he protested, attempting to brush him off. 

John however was used to railroading Laszlo’s opinions when he considered him to be entirely wrong, and didn’t like the idea of using his friend’s body unless he was also into it. He hit on an idea that might work within the parameters of Kreizler’s experiment.

“If you’re my whore for tonight, you shall have to do what I want.”

Apart from a second sharp intake of breath, no further protests were forthcoming. If anything, the words had a far more pronounced effect than the initial ministrations of his hand, and Laszlo was soon as hard as John. Not only this, he obligingly turned onto his front without having to be asked, allowing John to climb astride the back of his thighs.

Deprived of the opportunity to reach Laszlo’s erection, John rubbed his own cock along the crease of his buttocks, nudging them apart and enjoying the way Laszlo squirmed beneath him. 

Satisfied that things were proceeding along more equitable lines, John took the opportunity to reach for Laszlo’s jar of lubricant. He was glad that Laszlo could no longer see his burning cheeks, being sprawled face down as he was, but then John wasn’t averse to a little humiliation with his pleasure, and somehow the awkwardness of it was making him harder than ever. 

He transferred some of the jar’s contents to his rigid cock and then, as an afterthought, picked up more on his fingers and slid them between Laszlo’s buttocks. 

This produced a rather strangled noise from the depths of the pillow, but it didn’t appear to be a protesting one, and John didn’t think he’d imagined the fact that Laszlo had just spread his legs a little wider. 

Invitingly?

John decided he couldn’t put the moment off any longer, indeed was now keen to consummate this oddest line of research.

He repositioned himself, holding his cock steady with one hand and spreading Laszlo open with the other, thumb working more of the lubricant gently into his hole. With more eagerness than skill he pushed inside him, deciding it was probably better for Laszlo if he got the most uncomfortable bit out of the way quickly.

Even so, John caught the quiet noise of pain that Laszlo had clearly tried to contain, and winced on his behalf.

“Should I - ?”

“Continue.” Laszlo’s voice was tight, but the order was sharp and John was faintly annoyed that he hadn’t even managed to get his generous offer to desist all the way out. 

Consequently he was perhaps less accommodating than he might have been as he shunted the rest of the way in. This elicited a further wordless noise from Laszlo, although John was intrigued to note this time it sounded less pained and more guttural. It spurred him on, and despite having half-intended to take things slowly and carefully, he found himself thrusting into Laszlo with hard, greedy strokes.

Laszlo, for his part, found himself taken by surprise. Not particularly by the physical aspect – he’d been prepared for it to hurt, and in fact John had been a lot more careful of his person than he’d expected – but in opening himself to this he’d had to let down defences he hadn’t wholly realised were in place. 

Sharing this experience with John of all people was shaking his perceptions of what it meant to be intimate with someone. He’d thought he was braced for anything; the one thing he hadn’t expected was to lose his sense of self.

While Laszlo had nowhere near John’s experience he was still no virgin, at least when it came to women, and had expected to be able to keep part of his mind detached and analytical as he had on every other occasion. It was proving infinitely harder than he’d anticipated; physical sensations aside, the accompanying rush of unlooked for emotion was clouding his ability to think.

Overwhelmed, he found random thoughts and associations flitting through his mind. It was John who’d been responsible for Laszlo losing his virginity in the first place, and the sudden recollection almost made him laugh. Face pressed into the pillow, it came out as a stifled cough. 

As students at Harvard John had been determined to get them both laid. Laszlo thought back to the night in question, realising he could no longer remember the girl’s name, although he was sure he’d known it at the time. The main thing he recalled was the sound of John himself, mid-coitus and perfectly audible through the cheap partition wall.

Why such a thing should be his abiding memory of the night, he chose not to speculate, and in any case coherent thought was increasingly difficult. John’s breath was coming now in short fast pants, in perfect time with his thrusts, and Laszlo’s hands were bunched in the pillow to either side of his head, his body rocking with the force of it all. 

Laszlo barely had time to wonder if he’d imagined the increased urgency to John’s strokes, the raggedness of his friend’s breathing hard to determine over the roaring of the blood in his own ears, before John gave an almost despairing groan and came hard inside him. 

It was enough to finish him. Relinquishing his last tenuous scrap of self-control Laszlo let his own orgasm take him, spilling helplessly into the sheets while still pinned beneath the weight of John’s shuddering body. 

Shaking with reaction and belated shock at what they’d done, John carefully withdrew and fell backwards into the bedclothes to lie beside Laszlo, slowly recovering both his breath and his scrambled sanity.

He was just starting to be worried at the fact that Laszlo hadn’t moved from his prone position when he finally inched onto his back and instead lay staring blankly at the ceiling. 

“Was that – alright?” John asked, wincing even as the words came out, sounding needier than he’d intended. “I mean, did it serve?”

It apparently took Laszlo a while longer before he could speak, but when he did his voice was as carefully neutral as ever.

“It was – satisfactory, yes.”

“Satisfactory,” John echoed, mostly without inflection, but with just the hint of a sigh. “Oh good.”

Laszlo glanced sideways at him. “It was most – intriguing,” he offered. “I gained insights I had not expected.” 

“As long as one of those insights was a _satisfactory_ climax, I’ll take it,” John muttered. Experiment it might have been, but a man had his pride.

“Tell me how it was for you,” Laszlo demanded suddenly, propping himself on his elbow and looking at him keenly. “The things I need to know most are the experiences of the more active participant. Relate it to me.”

For a second John had thought Kreizler was genuinely enquiring as to his enjoyment of it, then remembered this was supposed to be strictly for practical purposes. He felt himself colouring again, but he’d agreed to this, and Laszlo had a fair point in asking. At the heart of what they were doing was the need to catch a murderer. It was a sobering recollection, and he shifted uncomfortably, sitting up in the bed. Laszlo waited patiently, looking up at him with eyes that were watchful but intent.

“It was – exciting,” John admitted finally, staring down at the bedspread rather than meet those eyes. “The sense of – transgression, as much as the physical sensations. Animalistic, almost. I couldn’t have stopped even if I’d wanted to.” The blood was high in his face now, but Kreizler merely nodded, as if having a pet theory confirmed to him.

“Good.”

“Is it?” John finally turned to look at him, suddenly riled. “Was it?”

“What?” Laszlo blinked up at him, startled, as John abruptly lunged sideways, closing the gap between them and holding his face inches above Laszlo’s own.

“Was it good?” John repeated, almost hissing it. “Did you feel something for once, you cold bastard?” 

Kreizler’s attempt at a stuttered reply was cut off as John did two things simultaneously: he climbed on top of him, pressing their still naked bodies together and holding him there, and he kissed him, hard.

There was a brief struggle which Laszlo was never going to win, before he yielded not entirely unwillingly to John’s mouth. He was conscious that his own groin and belly were still smeared with his earlier release, and that this was now producing a disgustingly erotic effect where John was pushing against him, seemingly heedless of the mess. The kiss was rough and deep and startling, and when John pulled away it took Laszlo several seconds to find his voice.

Unfortunately in those few seconds John had climbed off the bed and started pulling on his trousers, horrified at himself, head burning with a dizzying mixture of shame and desire.

Flustered and not liking it, Kreizler retreated into icy incredulity.

“And what exactly was that supposed to be?”

John stared down at him, shirt unbuttoned and jacket clutched in one hand, boots in the other. 

“An experiment,” he snarled, and unlocking the door he marched out, still half dressed.

“John!” Kreizler protested, but the door had already slammed behind him.

Kreizler subsided back into the pillows, and sighed. Still, he wasn’t overly worried by his friend’s flouncing departure. If he was confident of anything when it came to John Moore’s psyche, it was that he’d be back.

\--


End file.
